Princess Royal, a 40-episode historical fantasy, is aiming to follow in the footsteps of Chinese celluloid legends Farewell My Concubine, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Hero, with its towering female lead characters, sweeping cinematic production values and compelling love matches.
The series is an adaptation by Rao Jun of a wildly popular web novel by Mo Shu Bai, translated and published throughout southeast Asia. It has been brought to the screen by Yumei Yuan, one of China’s leading female producers, in association with Youku and Zhejiang Film and Television Group. It will be launched on Youku in China this summer.
Princess Royal is set in ancient China more than 1,500 years ago, in Wei Jin Dynasties, a cradle of Chinese civilization. The story revolves around a creative sleight of spiritual intervention. Li Rong (played by Jinmai Zhao) and Pei Wen Xuan (played by Linghe Zhang) married more than 20 years ago, drawn together by co-dependency and expediency more than any emotional affection. After years of loveless feuding, emotional treachery and ultimately finding death at the hands of each other’s scheming power plays, a higher spirit mysteriously intervenes to wind back the clock to their starting point as 18-year-old innocents.
“Which paths will they choose?” asks producer Yuan, whose credits include Day And Night, the first Chinese web series to be distributed by Netflix. “The essence of the story is something we’ve all fantasised about – if one day you wake up as your younger self, how would you choose to re-live your life? Could all those tragedies and regrets be avoided?”
“Real life is filled with both reality and fantasy,” adds director Go Yik-Chun, whose credits include the high -end TV drama The Empress Of China. “I feel that the lives of audiences are no different to our characters. They will find it easy to resonate with a show that blends truth and imagination and helps them to be ‘sucked into the drama’ as they say.”
After three years of script development and more than a year of pre-production, the ambitious production shot for 130 days of principal photography in Hengdian, Zhejiang with a crew of more than 1,000. The main set was the 6,000 square metre ‘Princess Palace’, at the centre of an overall set of more than 10,000 square metres. The preparation took more than six months of meticulous production design, with tens of thousands of custom-made historical replicas as props, thousands of bespoke costumes all inspired by traditional murals and paintings.
“Princess Royal offers eastern aesthetics on the outside, but the love story’s soul is universal, says Yuan. “Audiences will follow the psychology of our protagonist and find themselves sucked into a world where life can be re-lived, time turned back, and destiny can be re-written. These are the values that enable the series to transcend regional and cultural barriers and become well-loved throughout the world. The story is set around specifically eastern culture, but the story is global.”
It was the emotional journey of the princess that won the heart of Jinmai Zhao, the actress who plays the title role. “We learn from seeing how enemies from a past life get over their differences and fall in love,” she says. “ But we also see how much my character grows – which enables her to ultimately spend the best years of her life with the one she truly loves.”
Co-star Linghe Zhang, who plays Pei Wen Xuan, believes the couple’s “failure to communicate effectively in their first life had led to an entirely confrontational state of affairs. When the two characters change their ways and start to communicate in a timelier manner, they dispel their misunderstandings” and grow together on a deeper level as the story unfolds.
Princess Royal stands out as part of a trend in China towards making TV and streaming series with very high cinematic production values, leaning on crews highly experienced in making theatrical films. The art, lighting and cinematography departments all share extensive feature production backgrounds, including the director of photography Yan Daiyao, a graduate of the American Film Institute’s cinematography programme, with credits including Creation Of The Gods I: Kingdom Of Storms.
“We are confident in their team, their passion, and the ethos, and we have no doubt this is a work of high quality with both commercial and artistic values,” says Xie Ying, vice president of Youku. “Young, female audiences are our target audience, and Princess Royal has a huge fanbase as well as social media presence. Our lead actors are Gen Z, and we can’t wait to see our young talents bring these beloved characters to life. When blended with more mature and experienced performers, we feel the production represents China’s new vibrant creative force.”
Contact: [email protected]
No comments yet